The Child Doctor
by snappydog
Summary: The Doctor regenerates!... into a teenager! Starting at the end of the 11th Doctor's time, the new Doctor finds new companions and new enemies, as well as some old ones. Basically a load of OCs set in the DW universe.
1. Regeneration

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing about Doctor Who. Characters, settings, whatever. Most of the characters presented in this fic will be OCs but probably a lot of aliens from the show. A quick note on the time scale: this is set sometime into the Eleventh Doctor's tenure, so after the present (as of early 2010) series.

*

Space.

Massive.

Stars shone; nebulae swirled; planets orbited their respective suns.

The TARDIS plunged through a supernova, the Eleventh Doctor desperately clinging on to its door, shields nearly failing as the burning star surrounded it.

The blue box shot through the supernova; the Doctor pulled himself inside and slammed the door, leaping for the fiery controls. Yanking his hand back as the sound of frying flesh sizzled from the panel, the Time Lord made a dash for the fire extinguisher, unbuttoned tweed jacket flapping as he ran through the gargantuan interior of the tiny box.

'Come on!' he yelled at his breaking machine, punching buttons as he blasted the fire extinguisher one-handedly at anything burning.

Which was pretty much the entire TARDIS.

The loud thrumming from the terminal suddenly intensified, like an overheating computer.

'No!' the Doctor cried, dropping the extinguisher as both hands ran through his hair in frustration. 'Not already!'

A loud crash signalled the falling of a large pillar; the Doctor dived to the floor, grunting as he landed awkwardly on the metal grating. The thrumming grew still louder, the mechanism in the pillar pumping faster than it had ever worked before, the flames spreading as the TARDIS broke and collapsed around the Doctor, and then - silence.

A red glow filled the inside of the TARDIS, the terminal exuding a weird dark light. The Doctor stood slowly, hand again pulling at his hair.

'I haven't been me long enough,' he said, pleadingly.

The light seemed to harden, defiant and authoritative.

'Don't do this. Please.'

The walls of the TARDIS collapsed, space falling in. The Doctor stood immobile, staring at something unmoving amongst the chaos of a dying dimension.

Reality vanished, sucked away quicker than a dematerialising TARDIS. Still, the Doctor didn't move.

And another TARDIS fell into the first.

The Doctor's eyes moved. 'What?'

The doors opened, and the Tenth Doctor looked out, tears in his eyes. 'I don't want to go,' he said, almost desperately.

The Eleventh Doctor suddenly moved, jumping into the Tenth's TARDIS, his jacket falling loose and dropping to the floor.

'Doctor!'

The Tenth Doctor raised his head, spreading his arms wide; golden energy streamed from his hands and face.

'No!' the Eleventh shouted, sprinting towards himself.

The red glow filled the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS, and with a last scream, the regeneration ceased. The Doctor fell backwards, arms still spread-eagled, eyes open and glazed.

The Eleventh Doctor fell on top of his past self, sobbing, cradling him gently. He knew what was happening, of course; he was the Doctor. But the knowledge of what was about to come would not make it easier.

It was a paradox. The TARDIS, burning and dying after the Sontarans had sabotaged it, causing the Doctor to crash it into a neutron star, had used its only possible source of energy to stay alive: itself. It had cannibalised itself and become a Paradox Machine, but even that wasn't enough to keep itself going. All it could do was create rents in time, stealing the energy like a hungry Reaper. So it had found the biggest paradox it could. Another Paradox Machine. One created by another version of itself, containing another version of its passenger.

The Doctor let out a scream muffled by incessant sobs, clutching his past self tightly. The Paradox Machine was making him impossible, taking his life force to keep itself alive. He could feel it forcing him and himself together, trying to make him as much of an impossibility as it could.

Golden energy radiated from his hands, gently lighting his dead past self's face.

'Too soon,' the Doctor whispered through a sob. 'Too soon.'

Regeneration might have been saving himself from death, but it never got easier.

Every time, it felt more like dying.

It was dying.

The Doctor stood, feeling the paradox push his two selves together. He dropped his arms, the energy pouring from his hands, as the Tenth Doctor's body merged with his.

The paradox complete, but not enough to sustain it, the Paradox Machine faded away. The Tenth Doctor's TARDIS slowly morphed back into its original, beautiful self.

The Eleventh Doctor sighed, taking it all in through the haze of golden light swimming in front of his face. He raised his hands again, closing his eyes with a deep breath.

'Don't make this too hard,' he breathed.

And died.

*

The energy cascaded from the Doctor's skin as he screamed, his face upturned. Everything the Eleventh had ever known rushed through his mind, the knowledge of ten past lives streaming underneath.

And everything the Eleventh had been was stripped away, and everything that the Twelfth was poured in.

The flow of energy ceased.

The Twelfth Doctor breathed.

He stood, arms still outstretched, with his eyes closed, remembering what he had lost.

Mourning himself.

And then he turned to the terminal of the TARDIS, and pressed a few buttons.

And then post-regenerative hyperactivity kicked in.

Laughing, shouting wordless shouts, filled with excess regenerative energy, the Doctor danced around the TARDIS, testing his mobility. Shaking each limb in turn to ensure its presence in the correct place, he leapt nimbly onto the TARDIS console, jabbing at buttons, tugging on levers, yelling names of obscure planets: 'Felspoon! Polongus! Balhoon!'

Twisting a knob he didn't think he'd ever even noticed before, he settled on one. His favourite planet: 'EARTH!'

*

Thanks for reading! Please review, comments and constructive criticism appreciated.

-

Next time: What has the Doctor's new regeneration become? And who will his latest companion be? The answers are revealed on Earth, in chapter 2!


	2. Companion

DISCLAIMER: Don't own Doctor Who, anything about it. Etc.

*

Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom, Sol 3 (residents' designation: Earth).

The Doctor, still in the old-fashioned shirt and red suspenders - complete with bow tie - of his predecessor, dashed through the city street, whooping loudly. Children pointed and laughed; old ladies crossed the street to avoid him. He did a little dance, hopping along, in the now ill-fitting outfit.

It was a Saturday, so the city centre was filled with teenagers and adults alike.

'Companion!' the Doctor whooped, spinning on one heel.

He darted over to the nearest group of people - reasonably well-dressed teens, luckily; if he ended up with a chav for a companion the Doctor would never forgive himself - grabbed the nearest one, a bleached blonde boy, by the shoulder, and pulled him away with a hard yank.

'What are you -'

'Want to travel in time?' the Doctor asked excitedly, a gigantic smile spreading across his face.

Strands of light brown hair fell in front of his eyes; the Doctor blew them away irritably, the gargantuan grin never faltering. Brown hair, he noted, having not examined himself fully yet.

'I… what?!' The young man, whom the Doctor realised was very nearly as tall as himself, putting his new height at just under six feet, stood unmoving, an expression of the utmost incredulity on his face.

'Time. Travel. Come on,' he said, and with that he strode away.

'But -'

'Nope. Come!'

The teenager ran around in front of the Doctor, gesticulating madly. 'No, no, no… prove it.'

'What?'

'Prove you can travel in time.'

'Fine,' the Doctor harrumphed, wondering why his new body was changing its moods so quickly.

He strode to the TARDIS, flung open the doors, and took half a step in. Then he took two steps back.

'You… oh, you lovely machine,' he said almost dreamily, and headed to the console.

The TARDIS had regenerated with the Doctor, its walls becoming a luminous blue with gold and silver beams and globules of reds and yellows splattered around. Spiralling stairs led to old, familiar rooms and new, strange ones.

The console shone with a bright energy, making the inside of the TARDIS brighter and lighter than it had ever been. The Doctor pulled a few switches, grinning as a new sonic screwdriver slid from a recess; he left it where it was for the time being.

'What?!'

The Doctor turned.

The teenager had followed him inside, and had the rough expression of a small child in a sweet factory - one that happened to be far bigger on the inside than the outside, of course.

'My TARDIS,' the Doctor beamed. 'Isn't she a beauty?'

'Who are you?' the boy gasped, taking his eyes from the glowing walls to stare at the Doctor.

'I don't know yet,' he replied honestly. And then, with a massive smile: 'I'm the Doctor.'

'Michael,' Michael introduced himself, looking as if he might faint.

'Go for it,' the Doctor told him cheerfully.

Michael fainted.

*

Michael came to not long after. He woke to see the Doctor's face inches above his own, staring intensely at him.

'I'm a teenager.'

Michael recoiled, which only caused him to hit his head on the hard floor.

'I'm a teenager!'

'Yes!' Michael pushed the Doctor away and stood up, leaning on a pillar for support. 'Didn't you know?!'

'Time Lord!' the Doctor shouted, throwing his hands around madly. 'I never know what I'm going to end up as!'

'Time - what?'

'Time Lord! I travel in time!' the Doctor almost screamed.

'Oh, yeah.' Michael's voice took on an almost mocking tone. 'Weren't you going to prove that?'

The Doctor smiled briefly. 'Open the doors.'

Michael crossed, somewhat hesitantly, to the doors, and cautiously pushed them open to reveal - nothing.

'What…?'

'That would be space. Specifically, space in the vicinity of Planet Earth, in the Year 2050.'

'No, it isn't.'

The Doctor blinked. 'What?'

Michael looked over his shoulder, leaning casually out of the door. 'This could be space, any year.'

The Doctor looked somewhat fazed. 'But… we're in space.'

Michael turned back to the vast emptiness. The Earth passed into view as they spun in orbit, before leaving their field of vision.

Then it hit him.

'I'm in space!'

'Yep.' The Doctor seemed pleased with himself. 'That's pretty cool, right?'

'Yes!' Michael gasped, with the obvious additional meaning: 'Obviously.'

'Well… you just watch that for a bit. Or do something. Eat. I don't know.'

'Where are you going?'

'I need new clothes. Quite liked Ten's style, might go for that again… I need a hat! Haven't had a hat since… ooh, Seven? What did he… Cane! No, too much…'

Michael looked down at himself as the Doctor babbled something about 'Five pulled off the celery look quite well', something telling him that his current attire - a sort of smart-casual shirt with black jeans and red Converse trainers - would probably prove highly unsuitable for space travel. 'Got any spares?' he asked.

'What?'

'You know. Clothes.'

The Doctor regarded him appraisingly. 'That'll do. I've had worse-dressed companions.'

'But… don't you travel in space? And stuff?'

'Oh, yeah, but… Pond! She did her first one in her nightie! I mean… seriously. That'll be fine.'

Michael shrugged. 'Whatever. Just don't get me killed.'

The Doctor made a flippant gesture and a sort of 'meh' sound. Michael thought it was probably meant to be reassuring, but whatever it was, it didn't work. The Time Lord bobbled off, leaving the teenager to stare out into his new life.

*

'Well?'

'You dress older than your age. Sort of,' Michael said.

'I'm almost a thousand years old. Everybody forgot how old I was on my last birthday, they did the old one-candle cake thing. Pfft.'

'A thousand…?'

'Time Lord,' the Doctor said thoughtfully. 'So what do you think?'

He was attired in a cream suit with a light blue shirt and a white tie, black Converses on his feet. A black fedora sat on his head, strands of his light-brown hair coming down over his forehead from under the hat; to top it off, he wore the long brown overcoat favoured by his tenth self.

'It's weird,' said Michael, and then he grinned, a sort of half-laugh escaping through his lips. 'But it kind of works.'

'Excellent,' said the Doctor, and flung the overcoat onto a hanger. 'Don't touch that - Janis Joplin gave me that coat.'

'Why…?'

'Just trying it out.'

Michael couldn't work the Doctor out. He looked around sixteen or seventeen, not much older - if at all - than Michael himself. But he talked like an older, much wiser man than his years suggested, even if he did seem prone to adolescent-style outbursts and mood swings.

The Doctor fiddled with a few switches, gesturing to Michael that he should come over.

'This,' he explained, 'is the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Say hello.'

'Hello?' Michael complied, somewhat self-consciously.

'So.' The Doctor flicked one last switch, very much over-dramatically in Michael's opinion. 'Where to?'

*

Again, thanks for reading. Please review! If you want to suggest possible storylines or events or whatever, please do; I haven't really planned out anything so I could do with some ideas!

-

Next time: The adventure begins! The new Doctor and Michael encounter their first opponent together, and the Doctor tries to work out who his new self will be.


	3. The Living Planet

DISCLAIMER: I've never found out if I have to keep doing these in each chapter, but oh well. Don't own Doctor Who or anything like that. Anyway, in this chapter, the new Doctor and Michael fight their first enemy together! Yay.

'So.'

Michael scratched his head; the Doctor tilted his hat inquisitively.

'Anywhere?' Michael asked. 'Anywhere at all?'

'Yeah!' The Doctor's face lit up. 'Anywhere in all of time and space!'

A rare feeling took hold of Michael: uncertainty. All of time and space, and he couldn't pick one place!

'Come on!' the Doctor wheedled. 'Anywhere!'

Michael thought. And thought. And continued to think, and then wondered for a bit.

'Aaargh,' the Doctor blurbled. 'Come ooooooon! It's not like you only get one go!'

'Can't you stick it on shuffle or something?'

The Doctor blinked. 'The TARDIS is not an iPod,' he said, adjusting his fedora irritably.

'I'm surprised you even know what an iPod is, if you're… what? A thousand?'

'Hey, I can be down with the kids as well as any man.'

Michael grinned. 'You might be… however old, but you still look like a teenager.' He started to chuckle, and at the Doctor's affronted stare he burst into a full-scale laughing fit.

'Your point being?'

'You have no idea how weird it sounds to hear a teenager say things like that,' Michael told him, snorting with laughter.

The Doctor harrumphed. 'Kids these days,' he muttered, and Michael fell over laughing.

'So where are we?' Michael asked as the thrumming stopped.

'I don't know,' said the Doctor. 'I put it on shuffle.'

Michael rolled his eyes, and threw open the doors.

'Ah!' squeaked the Doctor.

'What?'

Michael looked out, and saw nothing but field.

'We're in a field!'

'So?'

'I've never been in a field before!' The Doctor practically skipped out of the TARDIS; in a single movement, he threw his overcoat into the air and thrust his arms through the holes, snatching up his new sonic screwdriver excitably.

'You've never been in a field?' Michael followed at a distance, in case anybody who might have been watching thought they were together.

'This me hasn't,' the Doctor replied, as if that explained everything.

'What?'

'Time Lord,' he said absently.

'Oh. Yeah.'

The Doctor skipped a few paces, waving his screwdriver around like a toddler with a toy sword. Then he stopped. 'Something's wrong,' he said.

'What?'

'Meh.' The Doctor shrugged. 'There's always something wrong, so… If there doesn't seem to be, I probably just can't see it.'

'What do you mean?' Michael folded his arms. 'Why does something have to be wrong?'

The Doctor gazed around, stowing the sonic screwdriver in an inside pocket. 'Just something about me, I suppose.'

'So… is this what you do? Pick people up and take them wherever they want? And then get them killed?'

The Doctor looked back at him; Michael thought he saw a single tear shining in the corner of the Time Lord's eye. 'Sometimes.'

Michael scoffed. 'Why?'

'I get lonely. And then they leave, and I get more lonely.'

There was a long pause. Then the Doctor turned and cleared his throat. 'So, er, what do you think?'

Michael looked up, confused. He could almost see the cold, alien aspects conflicting with the Doctor's humanity. 'About what?'

'What should we do?' The Doctor tried to smile encouragingly, but his eyes still glittered with something other than happiness.

In that moment, he looked more human than anybody Michael had ever met.

'I don't know.'

'Improvise.'

Michael frowned. 'Fine. Go that way.' He jabbed his finger in a random direction; the Doctor smiled and nodded approvingly.

'Let's do it.' He strolled in the direction Michael had pointed, hands in pockets. His expression was the oddest thing Michael had ever seen: his teenage face looked both childlike and incredibly old simultaneously.

'So where is this?' Michael asked, realising that all the Doctor had so far said about their location was 'field'. Which was, of course, entirely self-evident.

'I told you. Shuffle.'

'But you must know. I mean, you're… what? A time traveller? Time Lord? So you must know about… planets… and things.'

'Fine.' The Doctor sighed. 'We're somewhere near, but not too near, the Medusa Cascade, far enough from most civilisations that the Shadow Proclamation won't care that I'm here, and long enough before it was founded that they can't care anyway.'

'The what in the where?'

'Why ask if you're not going to understand the answer?' The Doctor tutted only half-seriously.

They strode on across the planet, which was proving to be essentially a spherical field.

'Told you there was something wrong,' the Doctor said casually.

'What?' Michael stopped and stared around, but saw nothing. 'I can't see anything…'

'Exactly. What CAN'T you see?'

Michael blinked.

'There's no life at all,' said the Doctor. 'Not even any plants, except the grass.'

'But… there must be!'

'Oh, I'm sure there is,' the Doctor mused. 'Just not on the surface.'

'Where, then?'

The Doctor whipped out the sonic screwdriver again, directing it at the ground, and a blue glow emanated from the end, along with a high-pitched whining.

'What are you…?'

'Checking.'

'For life?'

'Oh, yes.' The Doctor grinned and raised the screwdriver to his face, reading something from a tiny screen on the side. 'Knew it.'

'What?'

The Doctor brandished the screwdriver in Michael's face. 'Look. Life!'

Michael peered at the readout, but the Doctor whipped it away before he could make any sense of the strange symbols.

'So how do we get down there?' the Doctor asked.

'I don't know! You're the Time Lord!'

'Well, you're the human. Honestly!' The Doctor knelt, muttering incomprehensibly; Michael caught something about 'supposed to be creative'.

'Fine! Er…' Michael cast about, looking for anything he could say to placate the Doctor. 'Tree!' he blurted. 'Alice in Wonderland…' He seemed unable to form coherent sentences, but the Doctor grinned almost maniacally.

'Through the rabbit hole!'

And then, to Michael's astonishment, the Doctor seemed to fall through the ground, and vanished.

'What -' Michael jumped back in shock. 'Doctor?'

A hand, sonic screwdriver, wedged between third and fourth fingers, burst through the earth and grabbed Michael's ankle. 'Down!' the Doctor's voice whispered.

'No!' Michael felt himself being pulled through the earth, which offered a strange resistance that faded as soon as it was felt, like surface tension on water.

'Rabbit hole,' the Doctor grinned.

'They have rabbits in space?'

'No, that's a… hold on…' The Doctor brandished the sonic screwdriver at the earth above their heads, listening to the high whirring. 'Yeah. Partially permeable membrane, but it's sentient. Only lets living organisms through… and only ones that want to go through!' He looked at the loam admirably. 'You clever sod.'

He watched Michael's reaction expectedly. 'Get it? Sod? Never mind.'

'So what's down here?' Michael asked, unimpressed.

'No idea,' the Doctor said cheerfully.

Michael peered into the gloom. 'Can't you make it more light in here?'

The Doctor flicked his wrist, and a ball of light erupted from the sonic screwdriver. Michael jumped back, shielding his eyes in pain. 'What the -?'

'Portable grav globe,' the Doctor, who had turned away from the intense glow and was looking distinctly superior, explained. 'It'll float around after us.'

There was a pause. 'Well?'

'Fine. I'm impressed,' Michael admitted.

'Thank you.' The Doctor took a magnanimous little bow, an odd movement for a teenager's body. Particularly one wearing a suit.

'So… life?'

'I don't know. Might just have been that.' The Doctor pointed upwards. 'But I don't think so, somehow.'

'Check it out?'

'Definitely.' The Doctor smiled. 'You're going to be a good one, I can tell.'

They wandered around, through a maze of earthy tunnels that appeared to have dug themselves, the floating ball of light trailing after them.

'I'm going to have to change this suit,' the Doctor said after what felt like hours of silent walking. Michael peered over; he was right. Cream and dirt didn't go well.

'So are we heading anywhere in particular?'

'Of course! Following the life!'

Michael frowned; the Doctor gesticulated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was going to take a long time to get used to a teenager making such mature - almost to the point of seeming senile - gestures. 'What life?'

The Doctor managed to sigh, tut and roll his eyes simultaneously. Michael would have been impressed at the dexterity of the Time Lord's face if it hadn't been so annoying. 'Look.'

Michael looked.

Then he watched.

Then he saw.

'It's alive!' he gasped. For the entire loamy structure was pulsating, breathing. Living.

'Yeah. So we go to the most alive bit.' The Doctor gestured down the tunnel, to an area pulsing faster and more energetically than the rest. 'The heart of this planet.'

'Do you know what planet this is yet?'

The Doctor frowned, stroking his chin. He scratched his head and nodded knowledgeably, then he tapped the sonic screwdriver intelligently. 'No.'

'Great.'

'I know!' Michael stared incredulously. 'Adventure and all that,' the Doctor explained.

'You can't even guess?'

The Doctor sighed. 'Fine. It's a living planet, so one of Axos' twins, it's near the Medusa Cascade, so Ixios.'

'Good,' Michael said, glad to finally know where they were. 'And… is that good?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Probably.'

He strode on, leaving Michael to stare after him. 'What do you mean, probably?'

After further hours of walking, they reached a sort of underground clearing filled with green plants. The Doctor exhaled happily. 'Life!' he whooped.

'I thought you said the whole planet was alive,' Michael grumbled. His shoes were absolutely ruined.

'Yeah, but this is life! Ixions!'

'That's good?'

'Yes!' The Doctor paused. 'No.'

'What?'

'I just remembered something.'

'What?' Michael almost shouted.

'Well, this is a twin of Axos, and on Axos, all the life forms are extensions of Axos itself. And the Axons have an alarming tendency to try to kill me.'

'Oh, Lord,' Michael murmured. 'I'm trapped in time and space with a maniac. A forgetful maniac.' He pulled on the Doctor's sleeve. 'We should really go… how do you forget that a planet wants to murder you?'

'A lot of planets want to kill me,' the Doctor said defensively.

'Doctor…'

Michael froze. 'Please tell me the plants didn't just speak.'

'The plants didn't just speak,' the Doctor said.

'Then what did?'

'No, the plants did speak.'

'You told me -'

'Doctor…'

'You told me to tell you that!' the Doctor half-squeaked.

'Doctor!'

The Doctor turned. 'What?' he yelled at the plants.

There was silence.

'What do you want? I'm trying to have a conversation!' the Doctor shouted at the entirely uncaring greenery. 'Where was I?' He turned back to Michael.

'Doctor…'

'WHAT?' he yelled angrily.

The plants rustled. Then the leaves began to rise up, forming into the rough shape of a human face. 'Doctor!'

'Eaaaarrghh… is that all you can say?'

'Doctor…' The face formed itself into an expression of anger, and a thin tendril shot from its midst like a tongue, lashing across the Doctor's sleeve and leaving a small line of blood.

'Eurgh.' The Doctor flicked the sonic screwdriver like a whip; the grav globe hurtled through the air and struck the leafy face, exploding in a ball of flame.

The plants that formed the planet writhed and wailed loudly, bright green edges blackening in the tongues of white flame. A ring of fire leapt from the leaves and set fire to the Doctor's hat. The Time Lord grunted in frustration and threw the burning fedora into the midst of the plants, dust and dirt flying from his sleeves. 'Cream suit!' he yelled, his voice entering falsetto in his anger.

'Doctor!' the plants screamed, and a burning, humanoid figure shambled from the inferno, arms outstretched towards the Doctor.

'Ah.'

'What is that?' Michael practically screamed.

'Ixion construct! Won't feel pain unless we drain its energy somehow!'

'Can't we just hit the planet directly?'

'What?'

Michael jumped up and down violently. 'It's part of the planet, right? So just hurt the planet!'

'Jumping on it won't do anything!' the Doctor moaned, but then he snapped his fingers! 'Yes!' he shouted.

Pointing his sonic screwdriver at the ground, the Doctor made a high-pitched screaming sound; Michael clapped his hands over his ears as the same sound whistled from the screwdriver.

'DOCTOR!' the human-shaped thing screamed, flailing as it burned.

'NO!' the Doctor yelled at it. 'I CAN'T HURT YOU IF YOU FEEL!'

'What?' Michael said incredulously, unable to understand. The all-powerful 'Time Lord' couldn't harm a living being?

The flaming mass of plant threw itself at the Doctor, knocking him to the ground; the Doctor held the sonic screwdriver inches from its head, teeth gritted as he pressed a button as hard as he could with his thumb; the whirring, high-pitched whistling blasted into the creature's face. Michael tackled the alien, forcing it off the Doctor. It wailed and thrashed, flaming limbs passing dangerously close to Michael's face.

'What do you mean, you can't hurt it?' Michael yelled, pinning the burning arms of the alien to the ground; it simply sprouted new limbs from its torso.

'I won't kill anything! I won't!' The Doctor looked frantic, whipping his arms around violently to clear them of the fire.

'Why not?'

'I WON'T!' the Doctor bellowed, and Michael groaned in frustration, ripping the freshly spawned tendrils from the plant's torso.

'Then I will!' he shouted back, tearing at the creature's stemmed, leafy body, pulling leaf and root from it.

The alien wailed one last time, and the flames consumed it entirely, burning its body to ash.

'There!' Michael said with satisfaction, standing up and brushing ash and dirt off his knees. 'It's dead.'

'What have you done?' the Doctor growled.

'You're the one who set it on fire!' Michael defended.

The Doctor froze. 'Why did I do that?'

Michael shrugged. 'It cut your arm.'

The Doctor stretched his arms out and clasped his hands behind his head, strolling around in agitation. 'But I never hurt anything! Never!'

'You got angry,' Michael tried to explain.

'I DON'T HURT ANYTHING!' the Doctor yelled, oblivious to the continuing wails of the greenery behind him.

'Hey!' Michael backed away slightly, raising his hands defensively. 'Teenagers get mood swings, it happens!'

The Doctor looked at him incredulously. 'What? No! I - DON'T - DO - THAT!'

'But… your body might,' Michael told him.

There was a short pause, and then the Doctor screamed with his mouth closed, so that a muffled wordless sound came from him. 'I can't do that! I don't have time to be angry!'

'You're in a teenager's body!' Michael said irritably. 'Hormones happen.'

The Doctor harrumphed violently, turning back to the flaming mass of plants. His expression changed instantly, going from violent anger to shameful grief in the blink of an eye. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to hurt you.'

He raised the screwdriver, and Michael was again struck by the expression on his face. A teenager's face shouldn't look so… old.

'I'm sorry,' he said again, and the fire died down. The plants collapsed, like a human would after experiencing something traumatic. The Doctor turned back to Michael, adjusting his overcoat. 'Let's go,' he said.

'What…?'

'Somewhere else. Anywhere. Just… not here.'

'Why did we leave?' Michael asked later, having been dragged back out into the sun by a very muddy Doctor. The Time Lord fiddled with a wheel on the TARDIS console distractedly; something told Michael the wheel didn't actually do anything.

There was a long pause, silence except for the squeaking of the rapidly spinning wheel. Then the Doctor spoke. 'I've never done anything like that before,' he said sadly. 'I need to forget about it now.'

'People make mistakes,' Michael said, trying to comfort him.

'I don't,' the Doctor said, sounding both angry and regretful. 'Not like that.'

'What now, then?'

'Get changed,' the Doctor said quietly. 'I have to sort something out.'

Michael nodded, realising for the first time that he was at least as muddy as the Doctor himself, and his hair smelt of smoke from wrestling the plant alien. The Doctor gestured towards a staircase, and Michael took it.

The Doctor stood still for a few moments, then shrugged off his overcoat. 'In the wash,' he murmured, and a panel in the TARDIS floor opened, swallowing the dirty garment.

The Time Lord crossed to the doors of the TARDIS, pushing them open slowly. Carefully, he moved outside and knelt on the ground, pressing one hand against the living earth. 'Come on,' he muttered. 'Let me back in.'

The earth opened, and the Doctor fell back into the planet. He stood cautiously, finding himself in yet another of the endless maze of underground tunnels.

'Doctor,' came the call again.

'I know,' he said. 'Take it.'

From the far end of the tunnel emerged the planet's construct of a face, a globule of watery mud by the 'cheek' making it seem as if it were crying. 'We would not have hurt you,' it said slowly.

'I know,' the Doctor said again, sighing. 'But I messed up. Of course I did.'

Thick tendrils extended towards the Doctor, who stood with his arms outstretched, the image of confidence. His hearts, however, were racing at immense speeds, adrenaline flowing swiftly through his body. 'Don't take too much, will you?'

'Oh, Doctor…' The face smiled sinisterly, in a display of astonishing imitation by the plant mass that it comprised. 'So naïve.'

The tendrils leapt forwards, winding securely around the Doctor's wrists and ankles, lifting him from his feet. 'No, no, no!' he shouted. 'Just a cell! That's all you need!'

'You were right when you first saw us.' The planet appeared to have abandoned realism; the face no longer moved in time with the words and instead sneered disturbingly at the helpless Doctor. 'We do want to kill you.'

'But - you didn't!'

'You set us on fire!' the Ixion roared. 'We burned and died!'

'So take a cell! A single Time Lord cell, that's all you need! Regenerate yourself!'

'It would not be… satisfying,' the voice said, and it was as if the entire population of Earth had spoken at once, some of the voice's layers distorted and accented, some unclear, but all deeply sinister.

An unusually sharp-looking stem wound its way towards the Doctor, raising itself like a snake about to strike, or a scorpion's tail. 'No, no, no, no! I've only had this body for a few days!' the Doctor yelled. 'And this suit is cream!'

The pointed, weapon-like tendril raised itself until it was pointing directly at the Doctor's chest, right between his hearts. Then it struck.

Michael fell upside-down from the membrane separating the inner and outer worlds of Ixios, hands outstretched; he gripped the attacking stem tightly and pulled it away from the Time Lord, collapsing on it, pinning it to the ground. The limbs holding the Doctor let go, lashing at Michael; the Doctor landed gracefully and whipped out his screwdriver, dropping to one knee and pressing it hard against the ground. The Ixion froze.

'Don't make me press this button,' he said, looking up at it with bright blue eyes through strands of hair. 'Believe me, I would really, really like to right now.'

Michael let go of the tendril he was gripping tightly enough to resemble strangulation, folding his arms threateningly. 'Yeah,' he said confidently. He would have made a speech about not messing with him or something of that nature, but he couldn't think of anything to say. 'I'll write something down,' he said to himself.

'Go on,' the Doctor said, almost tauntingly. 'Go.'

The Ixion made as if to leave, but a single, thin tendril was snaking stealthily towards the Doctor's throat from above. As the giant mass made to turn a corner, it lashed out, drawing a long cut on the Doctor's neck.

'I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE!' the Doctor half-screamed, jamming his finger down on the sonic screwdriver.

The high wailing erupted from the tip, and the sound vibrations moved directly onto the earth. The entire planet became an amplifier for the sound, and the power of it threw Michael off his feet.

The Ixion screamed, the vibrating planet absorbing itself back into the soil, and the Doctor let go, panting.

'What were you doing?' Michael asked incredulously. 'I only just got changed, and…' He cut himself off at the look on the Doctor's face.

'I came to give it a chance,' the Time Lord said quietly, a tear forming in his eye. 'I thought it was…'

'Friendly, happy alien?' Michael put in.

'Yeah. Something like that.'

'Come on,' Michael said. 'I know where I want to go next.'

The Doctor stood, a small smile spreading across his face. 'Excellent,' he said. 'I definitely need a new suit for this one, though.'

'Yes, you do,' Michael said, laughing.

The Doctor chuckled quietly, and Michael patted him on the shoulder. The Doctor looked around, surprised, and for a moment Michael thought he was angry. Then he smiled fully. 'Where now, then?'

Michael grinned. 'Future,' he said. 'A long, long way in the future.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I can do future,' he said.

'Just one question,' Michael said as the Doctor started to raise himself back onto the planet's surface.

'What?'

'Is something likely to try to kill us there, too?'

The Doctor grinned. 'Oh, yes.'

Thanks for reading again! I could still do with suggestions for storylines if anybody has any ideas. I'm kind of idea-less, but I'll get the next one out if this story seems to be popular…

Next time: The Doctor changes his suit… And Michael gets his first taste of the future!


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